


vergissmeinnicht

by tarm



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Psychology, Songfic, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24422641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarm/pseuds/tarm
Summary: black and white holes will never collide
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	vergissmeinnicht

**Author's Note:**

> lany — good guys
> 
> https://pin.it/2FaxFQA

what i really wanna do  
is bring you flowers

**  
  
  
**

**02:17  
** _Hifumi, I have to kill him._

Hifumi sighs and puts her phone aside.  
At this point, it’s too much for her.

 **02:19  
** _I don’t know how to hit on him so he has to die._

Ren first appeared in their messages a couple of weeks ago, when Ryuji and Futaba brought him to the amateur theatre which Goro acts from time to time in, and now Ren is all over Hifumi’s phone as well as Goro’s heart.

**16:09  
** _Ryuji and Futaba brought someone new. Not interested._

 **17:27  
** _Well, he can act. I suppose he could be useful._

**16:51  
** _I spoke to him about Heidegger for more than a couple of minutes!_

**18:13  
** _Ren works at a café in Yongen. It explains why he always smells of coffee._

 **18:17  
** _Yes, would you like to accompany me there?_

**17:06  
** _He brings his cat_ _along_ _wherever he goes. He looks sweet._

 **17:07  
** _The cat!_

**09:11  
** _Ren won’t be attending today. Apparently, his schedule at university has been changed, and he now has classes on Saturday.  
I feel kind of bored. _

**19:07  
** _Ren said he likes the way I tie my hair in ponytail._

**12:59  
** _HE  
_ _LIKES  
_ _JAZZ_

**19:47  
** _I can’t stop looking at his suspenders._

**15:21  
** _Ren said he’d been so touched by the way I played that detective in a TV-series a few years ago that he’d bought some of my merch to support me back then!_

 **15:55  
** _Hifumi, he still has my keychain!_

**21:49  
** _Ren stayed with me after rehearsal to help me look for my player when I was falling into despair._

 **21:59  
** _And he found it!_

**9:04  
** _Ren brought us all coffee from Leblanc. I’m dying._

**10:37  
** _Turns out Ren used to live in Tokyo a few years ago, but he had to finish school in his home town. I wonder if we ever met during the time he stayed here._

**18:14  
** _Ren was waiting for me for two hours while I had an audition. I feel… happy?_

**19:02  
** _Ren got a second part-time job at a flower shop in Shibuya. I hope this doesn’t affect his participation in theatre._

**9:01  
** _He gave me a book I once briefly mentioned as a gift!_

 **9:03  
** _Should I get something for him too?_

**13:31  
** _He annoys me because I don’t really find it annoying when he does something annoying!_

**21:17  
** _I wish I could talk to him about my parents. I have no idea why though and if I actually should._

**17:04  
** _I ran into Ren in the flower shop._

 **17:05  
** _I want to surround him with flowers._

 **17:17  
** _No, I most certainly did NOT know that he was working today._

 **17:18  
** _No, I did not make a detour while going to a shoot so that I could see Ren at the flower shop._

 **17:19  
** _Hifumi, I did not!_

 **1:17  
** _Fine, you were right._

**9:53  
** _Haru tried to style Ren’s hair back with hair spray. It took her half of the bottle, I reckon._

 **9:54  
** _I like it better when his hair all loose and wavy.  
  
_

 **9:57  
** _We’re posing for Yusuke’s poster.  
_ _I can’t look at Ren in that vest anymore._

 **9:59  
** _It’s tight!  
_ _And sleeveless!_

 **10:00  
** _It’s worse than when it was just the suspenders…  
  
_

 **10:14  
** _And I can’t wear this goddamned mask anymore._

 **10:15  
** _Yes, it’s horribly uncomfortable. My face hurts._

**20:19  
** _I spend too much time with the others because of Ren. I don’t like it.  
_ _I’ve been to a café twice with them this week!_

 **20:20  
** _Yes, he grew close to everyone in the theatre so fast._

 **20:21  
** _I guess yes. Including me._  
  


 **20:27  
** _I don’t know, I just enjoy hanging out with him. I feel warm. That’s all._

“Would you like some coffee?” Ren looks at Goro who is clutching onto his phone and looking for a reason not to go home.

Goro nods: he _really_ doesn’t want to go there.

Ren _really_ wants to spend more time with Akechi.

Outside, there are cold night — they completely forgot about time during the rehearsal; the cleaner had to make them leave — and empty skies as if someone has stolen all the stars, and all Goro now can see is the neon lights and glow in Ren’s eyes.

Ren takes out a pack of cigarettes and begins to smoke, offering one to Goro, but he declines: he prefers different ways of self-destruction, and out of sweet chocolate-flavored cigarette smoke the clouds are born that fill Tokyo streets, Leblanc, and Ren’s room, finding in the latter their sky.

Goro finally sees where the missing stars have disappeared to: on the ceiling of Ren’s room, luminous star-shaped stickers from the planetarium shine — brighter than the neon fakes, but not as bright as Ren’s eyes.

“I like your stars,” Goro says, lying across Ren’s bed, one leg on top of the other and his hands under his head. Ren sits on the floor near the bed, leaning his back against it, and turns to Goro, and because of that, the stars appear right before Goro, only a few centimeters away, shining, but not blinding.

Ren watches him for a couple of seconds smiling and whispers back softly.

“I like yours too,” he says like he means it, but Goro wants to laugh.

He sincerely doubts that Ren can actually see the remnants of the stars in his eyes that faded long time ago.

He wishes Ren could.

Ren’s eyes are dark gray, almost black — black holes. Goro is drawn to them, absorbed, captured. He dissolves in these eyes, in Ren, and cannot break out, escape, no matter how hard he tries.

What will happen if a black hole and a white hole meet?

Goro has no idea.

He reaches out to Ren, afraid of getting close, and gets close, afraid of reaching him. He likes Ren — it was hard not to notice — but Goro was alone for so long, got so used to having in his life only Hifumi, his single friend, and “the others” that the closer he becomes to Ren, the further from him he turns out to be.

A white hole cannot be entered, and if something does appear in it, the white hole will cease to exist.

Goro is scared of that.  
  


Ren goes to the kitchen to make the coffee he promised, and Goro opens up a search engine on his phone.  
  


_“A black and a white holes will never collide.”_

_  
“It would be like two protons colliding, and protons repel each other. The same would happen with a black and a white holes. The closer they got, the more they would repel each other.”_

_  
“If they **could** collide, there would probably be an explosion.”  
  
_

This is not the answer Goro hoped for.

But it is the answer he expected.  
  


Ren comes back with two cups of coffee, one of which he hands Goro and the other one places on the windowsill near the bed.

“I have some assignments to do for classes tomorrow, so…” Ren begins, glancing at his laptop, but Goro interrupts him.

“It’s okay. I know how to keep myself busy,” he smiles. He wanted to finish a book anyway, only a few chapters are left.

Ren picks up his laptop and flops down on the bed next to Goro, placing the laptop on his lap. He constantly turns to take the coffee, touches his hair or fixes his glasses when he’s thinking and changes his position every time a new idea pops up in his head, but it doesn’t bother Goro. At some point, book manages to capture all his attention, and he doesn’t even notice, nor does he realize that Ren’s head is suddenly on his lap while Ren’s enthusiastically typing something, his laptop on his stomach.

Ren seems to find it comfortable, Goro, apparently, too, since he doesn’t say anything — quietly keeps reading — even after Ren’s done and the laptop is put aside. Ren looks at Akechi upwards, studying his beautiful face, messy ponytail, unstraightened collar of a black shirt, and comes back to his eyes.

Illuminated by the old lamps and the stars, they seem red, fires shining as if they might fade away any moment, and Ren wants to preserve their light.

Goro Akechi is the Red Death.

And Ren is his prince Prospero. The prince who is desperately trying to deceive the universe.

Except that this time it’s to save Goro Akechi.

“You can stay tonight if you like. I can sleep on the sofa.”

Goro puts the book away and looks at Ren surprised.

Ren wants to reach out and touch the stars in his hair.

“I…” Goro doesn’t know what to say to turn Ren down, how to catch the words that refuse to be said, because he madly wants to stay. “It’s been hard for me to be alone in that apartment lately.”

“Then you can just come here,” Ren smiles. “Or we can come to your place, right, Morgana?”

Morgana jumps off the sofa, as though he understood Ren perfectly, and, having made it to the bed, rubs his head against Goro’s hand and lies next to him.

“It means he fully agrees,” Ren clarifies, still smiling, and Goro nods.

Goro Akechi is the Red Death, but Ren is his red death.

***

“My mother killed herself when I was little,” Goro twiddles with the ashtray he had to buy so that Ren could smoke in his apartment. “It was very hard for her back then. She didn’t have any money or any help — only me, a burden, and drugs — her salvation.”

The wind knocks on the windows, doors, waves at Morgana and carefully touches the glass, asking to let him in.

It’s starting to rain.

“I’ve been thinking about her awfully a lot lately. About how I missed her. How lonely I was.”

 _“How hard it was for me to open up to people. How hard it is for me to open up to you. How afraid of that I still am”_ remains unsaid, hides behind his teeth and clings to his tongue, not daring to slip.

“I’m sure she’ll be proud of you,” Ren sits across the table, with one leg on the chair. “Just remember that Hifumi, and guys at the theatre, and Morgana, and I… we are always there for you.”

The wind outside is hopelessly trying to break into the room.

Goro hates this feeling. Hates that he is afraid of losing something that isn’t even his, but is desperately craving his to become, and that he lets go of this something because of that. Because he is scared.

Can you lose something that was never yours, to begin with?

For the first time, Goro thinks that the answer is _yes_.

He may lose Ren if he holds out his hand to him, but if he doesn’t — he’s already lost him.

Morgana jumps onto Goro’s lap, and he automatically begins to pet him. Mona kneads him for a few seconds, making himself comfortable, and falls asleep. Ren gets closer too: he crouches beside Goro and pets Morgana, accidentally touching Goro’s hand from time to time.

It’s getting hot.

Goro carefully picks Morgana up, doing his best not to wake him, and comes to the window, opening it and letting the wind in.

The wind messes with Akechi’s papers lying on the table, gently runs through the hair and strokes Morgana’s fur, embraces Goro, when Ren, having grabbed the ashtray and lit up a cigarette, walks up to them and puts his chin on Goro’s shoulder. Goro leans back and turns to Ren, brushing his nose against Ren’s cheek.

_“Mom, I think I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”_

***

Ren collapses on the stage — the black mask falls off, crushing onto the floor — and Akechi turns around, glares at everyone left standing, flamboyant masks, comes to the center of the stage, ignoring Ren’s arm reaching out to him, numb on the floor, and stands still, arrogantly staring at the auditorium.

“Well done! Let's wrap it up here,” the director claps his hands happily, and Goro finally takes off the mask he’s insanely fed up with and helps Ren get up.

The premiere is in a few days, but Goro already wants it to be over. It’s not that he’s nervous or tense, no — he’s just incredibly tired of this mask, terribly uncomfortable and sickening if you look at it for too long.

“Maybe we could go to Jazz Jin tonight?” Ren asks as he neatly places his costume aside, puts on his usual turtleneck and black ripped jeans and fixes his suspenders. Goro nods, when Ren turns to him and smiles.

Ren smiles at him when Goro watches him, mesmerized by the stars of the lamps twinkling in Ren’s hair while the singer comes to the microphone and music begins to play.

It begins to play with Goro’s feelings, his soul, exposing them and turning him inside out, and Goro is lost in these sounds, in soothing melody and piano raindrops, in voice swinging the doors open which he timidly hides behind.

He has to say it. Has to say to him right now how he feels, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest if the universe will explode after because either way Goro Akechi will be free.

If Ren actually is the red death, then, having broken into the castle, he helped scared Goro Akechi escape.

Ren collapses on the stage, and Akechi turns around, glares at everyone left standing, flamboyant masks, comes to the center of the stage and stands still, arrogantly staring at the auditorium. 

The audience explodes, the noise almost stuns Goro, and everyone around seems to shine with glee, but he just wants to take off the bloody mask to stop being the Red Death and return to being Goro Akechi.

They bow to the audience before leaving the stage, and Goro finally can breathe.

Everyone’s cuddling, and even Goro gets his share of hugs, when Ryuji clings to him and Ann comes along. Ren smiles at him across the room — he’s captured the same way by Futaba and Yusuke, and Goro has to wait until they let Ren and him go to be able to reach their dressing room at last and relax.

He flops down on an old bench, pulling off the uncomfortable shoes, and Ren sits next to him, trying to comb sticky sprayed hair (normally Goro adores touching them, because they are _fluffy_ and _soft_ , but not right now). Ren hides them in the hood of his white sweatshirt.

Futaba peeks in to remind them that they are all to meet in the karaoke tomorrow to celebrate (Goro isn’t really sure that anyone of them can sing, but it’s got to be fun either way, he supposes), and cheerfully congratulates everyone on the premiere.

Goro leans back once he’s finished changing and stares at the window. A text from Hifumi pops up: she won her shogi match and asks how the opening night was, but Goro is feeling too lazy to respond.

Ren glances at him and laughs (joined by Ryuji because it’s rare to see Goro Akechi in such a state) and holds out his hand to help Goro get up.

Ren holds out his hand when they leave the theatre, and Goro takes it and squeezes it, hiding their hands in the pocket of Ren’s hoodie. Ryuji and Ann wave goodbye to them before dissolving in the neon streets — before he and Ren will disappear too, hidden in the bright lights.

Ren hides his hands in the pocket of his hoodie once he’s given Goro his coffee and is ready to deal with dirty dishes, but Goro gently pulls him back by the suspenders, making Ren turn around.

“I’ll help you later,” Goro whispers, and Ren takes a seat near him, fixing his still wet hair. Goro searches for something in his bag for a couple of moments, and then takes out a small square transparent box with forget-me-nots in a pot inside which he gives to Ren.  
  
  
  


The universe is infinite.

And therefore it’s possible that here, in this barely noticeable part of the vast universe, in Tokyo, a white hole meets a black one, and they stay together.


End file.
